


Hold me closer in the night

by becka



Series: Hold me closer in the night [1]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Closeted Character, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 17:27:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12462447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becka/pseuds/becka
Summary: Nick says, "Is Niall gay?" And he sort of expects Harry to just laugh.But Harry goes quiet. "Did someone tell you that?"ORNick and Niall get closer over the summer of 2017.





	Hold me closer in the night

**Author's Note:**

> Deepest thanks to [Lucy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/balefully) for thinking this through with me, both in chatfic and regular fic form. <33
> 
> Thanks to Niall for supplying the lyrics for the title and generally making a beautiful album.
> 
> This is a work of fiction, which takes liberties with actual events and also includes lots of stuff that definitely didn't happen.

Niall is a laugh. He’d be great to go down the pub with. That’s what Nick would say about him if someone asked. It’s probably what most everyone at Radio 1 would say. He’s easy to talk to, and he remembers everyone’s names whenever he comes in. And at the end of each interview, he says, “We should grab a pint,” and he sounds like he means it, but Nick doesn’t see him until the next time he’s got something to promo.

When he comes in to do the Live Lounge, he slips into Nick’s studio during a song, and he doesn’t have to be there, but it’s nice having him. He seems more at ease than he did the last time through, cracking jokes and smiling just at Nick, and Nick thinks that in some other world, he and Niall might have been good friends.

Nick hugs him as he leaves. “I’ve got to do an interview, so I can’t listen live,” he says. “I’m gutted. You’ll be great though.”

“Thanks, Grim,” says Niall. “We’ll get that pint this time, yeah?”

“Yeah. You’ve got my number.” Nick starts to step away, but Niall pulls out his phone to check. Like the pint isn’t a myth after all.

 

Niall’s in London for a while. Rochelle sees him for dinner, mentions it in passing while she and Nick compare busy schedules. Cheryl says it’s sweet how Niall keeps up with them and the baby, but Liam’s got his own promo to deal with, so they all keep missing each other. Harry barely even sees Nick while he’s home except to fall asleep on Nick’s sofa in the middle of a story about a posh tropical wedding. There’s no text about a pint with Niall, and Nick remembers him saying it long enough to be disappointed by that. And then he’s packing for Spain, putting together odds and ends and telling the dogs how guilty he feels leaving them, and Niall goes straight out of his head until he hears “Slow Hands” in a restaurant in Mallorca, where he’s inexplicably sat next to an American mate of Aimee’s called Rob who’s come by for the night.

“He’s gay, you know,” Rob says, which just about gets Nick’s attention off his paella.

“Who?” says Nick.

Rob points up, presumably at the speaker overheard. “Niall from One Direction. I saw him in a club in London--what’s that thing you say--getting off with some guy.”

Nick’s spine unknots because of all the One Direction members whose sexuality they could be discussing, at least it’s not Harry. “How’d you know it was him?”

“Twinky, Irish accent, drunk off his face and grinning everywhere. I watched their movie, I know how to identify them. You always sort of suspected though, right? I mean, look at him.”

“Mmm,” says Nick noncommittally. It dawns on Nick that Rob may genuinely have no idea how much time Nick’s spent talking about One Direction in the last six years. Aimee’s got an eye on them, but Nick doesn’t mind. At least not yet. “What was the guy like?”

“Built. Really, like, huge. Made Niall look like a little toy next to him. He seemed into it though. I wonder if he unhinges his jaw like a snake to take something like that.”

Nick laughs, startled, and Rob gives him a conspiratorial wink he doesn’t deserve. He’s never really thought about Niall and sex, flirty new single and that legendary on-stage crotch grab aside, and he tries to think if anything they’ve ever said to each other would be different if Niall were gay. Probably not, honestly.

 

For some reason Nick can’t stop thinking about it though, the speculation, the image of Niall shagging a bloke twice his size. He’s never asked Harry a lot of questions about the other One Direction boys. They come up a lot, the way your mate's job and their mates always do when you've known each other a long time, but they're all one step removed from Nick. However much he likes Niall on the radio, the stories he knows about him are Harry’s.

So Nick finally gives into curiosity and phones Harry, and after a charming ramble about Harry’s schedule for the week and when he’ll finally turn up for the wedding, he says, "Is Niall gay?" And he sort of expects Harry to just laugh.

But Harry goes quiet. "Did someone tell you that?" he asks softly. Which seems like very much the opposite of laughing. Nick gets off the sofa and goes back to his own room, even though everyone else is in the pool, so it’s not as though Nick’s disturbing them.

Nick paces back and forth around the end of the bed. "Yeah, someone said something like that. Just someone at dinner, just in passing. Thought he saw Niall out somewhere." Which isn't even untrue, but it makes Nick uneasy sharing simple facts when Harry's being so serious.

"He's never said anything to me," says Harry, but with this little emphasis on “said” like it isn't the whole story.

Nick glosses over it. "Well, he would have said it to you if he was going to say it to anyone. Must be just a rumor. Mistaken identity. Something like that."

Harry doesn't say anything for a long time, but Nick can hear him rustling around and he wonders if Harry can hear Nick’s own footsteps as he paces. Finally Harry admits, "I don't think he'd tell me. I don't think he'd ever have told me."

Nick can’t say anything helpful to that.

Harry takes a shaky breath, and Nick knows that whatever is coming is a story Harry hasn't told him about One Direction. It's exactly the kind of conversation Nick absolutely can't handle, especially not on the phone where it's really just him in a room on his own listening. There’s no eye contact, no option to nod comfortingly or pet Harry’s hair in that way he likes. Everything’s got to be words, and words about feelings are one of Nick’s weak points.

There's this weight of a secret in Harry's silence as it stretches, a real secret, not just a half-hearted industry secret like how everyone knows Harry and Nick used to snog at parties but doesn't mention it out of courtesy. Nick waits, giving Harry space to say something, more space than he normally would because proper secrets aren’t easy to share. 

"People tell me I'm fencesitting,” Harry says, “ by not labeling it. My sexuality. Like it's a bad thing to not want to put a name on it, when it's complicated."

"Did Niall tell you that?" Nick asks, affronted and prepared to defend Harry--even though it is a little bit fencesit-y--because it's hard to be a teen pop idol and tell everyone that you're just flexible and opportunistic and slutty ("Always available" tweet notwithstanding). It’s hard to say anything at all, even if all it is is “no labels please”.

"Sort of. I said some things in an interview once and he just shut down after, and he told me, 'You shouldn't take it for granted. You can just tease people with that stuff forever and it doesn't matter. But not everyone can.' And I thought he was talking about all the stuff people say to Louis, or like, he had a gay friend who couldn't be out. Which is hard. And I understand why it's hard. I do!" He sounds slightly frantic, nearly pleading, as though Nick might doubt him.

"Of course you do, love," Nick says soothingly.

"Of course it's hard, if you haven't got the choice to be open about it. That's bad. He must know I think that's bad.” His voice is still getting shriller, but he pauses to take a breath. “But then I started to think maybe he didn't mean it about anyone else. Maybe he just didn't trust me. He keeps so much back, but I used to think it wouldn't be from me."

“Does he?” asks Nick. He knows there’s more to Niall than what he gets on the radio, but he never would have said Niall keeps things back.

"He's a really private person. You don't think of him like that, but he is. As soon as you think about it you start to realize there's all this stuff you don't know about him, and what you do know about him is just obvious stuff. He makes it so easy not to ask certain kinds of questions."

Nick nods along because he knows there's got to be more to it than this, that Harry’s working up to something else.

“I think I wouldn’t be so sure he wouldn’t tell me if we weren’t still talking. Sometimes I think that’s the best part of all this solo stuff. I can take a long look at the people I spent every single day with for actual years.”

“But if you’d stopped talking, how could he tell you more than he does now?”

“It’s just, like, if we never talked, there’s always a chance things will change and we’ll be closer again and he’ll say something. But with things how they are, he phones me up, and we talk, but we don’t talk about that.”

“Maybe that just means there’s nothing to talk about,” Nick says slowly.

“I know how it sounds, but sometimes he says things, like… Like we were talking about hair. Since I cut mine and he stopped dyeing his. And I said, ‘People are constantly asking about my hair, are they constantly asking you about your hair?’ And Niall said, ‘Yeah, but at least no one recognizes me when I’m out. You still look like you.’ And I didn’t really get that because he still looks the same too, and he’s got the same clothes and everything.” Harry pauses, and Nick hears his deep breath. “He said it wasn’t the same. And he said he liked it. ‘I can do what I like and no one notices,’ he said.”

“Like what?” says Nick.

“That’s exactly what I said. I said, ‘Like what?’ And he said, ‘Take people home I'd never want to know who I was.’ And I was, like, dubious, you know? Like, ‘You're really meeting girls who don't know who are?’ And he was like, ‘I didn't say that, did I?’" He relates all of this in a stumbling, hurried way like a confession, and Nick's quiet through it, but it seems pretty conclusive, more conclusive than he expected. He can’t think what to say.

“So I reckon Niall might be gay,” he tells Harry finally.

Harry makes a sound that’s half sigh, half laugh. “He’s never going to tell me for sure.”

“You might try snogging him next time he comes round for tea.”

“I don’t think I’m his type.”

Nick scoffs. “You’re everyone’s bloody type.”

Harry doesn’t laugh though, or murmur vague protests, the way he usually would. “I just wish he’d talk to me about it. I understand. You know I understand.”

“Of course you do, babe. But maybe that isn’t what he needs. You can’t know, can you?”

“Yeah.” Harry blows out a breath, loud and horsey down the phone, and changes the subject.

 

“Y’alright, Grimmy?” says Niall, a cocktail glass in his hand, beaded with condensation as though he’s been holding it for a while. He’s appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of a party full of fancy people Nick knows just well enough to say hello to, and Nick was just thinking of slipping out for an ill-advised cigarette, but this’ll be better.

“Hello, young Niall,” says Nick, turning towards him and grinning. “What brings you here tonight?” He’s in suit trousers and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looks like a young investment banker, but good, really good, wearing the persistent heat of the day in the red of his cheeks. It’s as though talking to Harry has given Nick new permission to look.

“You know me,” says Niall. “I love a party.”

Harry saying, “you start to realize there's all this stuff you don't know about him” runs through Nick’s head, and for the first time he notices how Niall’s veneer of simplicity keeps people from getting too close. They talk about Niall’s single, his promo schedule, the sort of stuff they’d talk about on the radio. And all the while they’re shifting closer to each other, elbows brushing as they look out at the rest of the party, the warm day finally dissipating into soft, cool night, darkness deepening and a breeze skidding across the rooftop. Niall looks up from under his eyelashes as Nick tells him about Glastonbury. A couple of weeks ago, Nick wouldn’t have thought that look meant anything.

“I need to get out there some year,” says Niall. “I’m not so great in a crowd though. Too many people around and I get a little bit panicked.”

Nick jogs his elbow against Niall’s. “I could look out for you.”

Niall laughs. “I know what you’re like at a festival, mate. You’ve got some other priorities.”

“Are you talking about drinking, Niall?” He swigs his beer. “I would never.”

“Nah, I mean I talk to Shawn. He’s got some insights.” He gives Nick a harder look, and Nick grimaces.

He likes a young, closeted popstar, there’s no denying that. They’re well groomed and grateful and they almost never want you to be their boyfriend. Sometimes they’re hard up and a little bit desperate, and if Nick is bad at genuine romantic connection, he does still like to feel needed. Shawn was game for a quick, frantic exchange of blowjobs in the questionable privacy of the Big Weekend dressing rooms. He stuffed a hand over his mouth when he came, and Nick was charmed by the flush of his cheeks afterwards. Shawn still texts him, and Nick texts back, but he’s firm in his “no boyfriend” policy. “I like Shawn,” Nick says inadequately.

“Don’t we all,” says Niall. It could mean anything, but Nick imagines them together, Shawn bending down to kiss Niall’s mouth, Shawn’s big hands on Niall’s narrow hips. They could probably build a tidy little pop empire if they wanted. “He didn’t say anything bad about you,” Niall adds. “Just you were a bit aloof.”

“Isn’t that bad?”

“It is what it is, isn’t it?” Niall replies. “Some things aren’t meant to be more than a good weekend.”

“That something you’ve got a lot of experience with then?”

Niall gives a cryptic little smile that means more than anything he’s said, and his gaze shifts to the other side of the other side of the patio. Nick’s been successfully ignoring the buzz of the party, eyes shifting over the crowd aimlessly. He can’t tell what Niall’s looking at. “I’ll see you around, Grimmy,” Niall says, slipping away.

 

Nick doesn’t tell Harry about seeing Niall or speaking to him or the complex moment of understanding but not knowing he had as he watched Niall walk away. There’s no specific reason not to say anything, but he doesn’t do it and doesn’t do it, and after a while it seems like a secret that he’s keeping. For Niall. As though Niall is someone he knows well enough to deserve his loyalty. And then eventually he just sort of forgets about it, and life goes on, and Harry’s starting to talk about his movie, which is weird and cool and still too new.

When Nick sees Niall again, it’s by chance in Oxford Street. He’s out by himself, no security in sight, brown hair and sunglasses making him nondescript. Nick can see how a bloke in a club might take him for just an Irish lad looking for a good end to the night. Nick might’ve walked right past him on the pavement if Niall hadn’t put a hand out and said, “Hey, Grimmy.”

They wind up shopping together for a bit. Niall’s in the market for new headphones, which is something Nick’s got a fair few opinions on, and he doesn’t seem to mind the company. The afternoon just goes on until Nick feels guilty for neglecting the dogs. “I should get home,” he says. “You’re not off the hook for that pint though.”

Niall laughs, and they linger on the pavement for a moment. “Any time you like.” He doesn’t turn away, and Nick doesn’t want him to go all of a sudden.

“Why don’t you come home with me then? The dogs won’t mind.”

“How many have you got? Just the two?”

“Yeah. Two’s enough, I think. One of them’s small, but he’s got a lot to say for himself.”

“I’d love to meet them, if you really don’t mind.”

Which is how they wind up in Nick’s back garden with Pig and Stinky underfoot. Niall’s hair is gold-tipped in the sunlight, and he keeps reaching down to scratch between Stinky’s ears as the little dog leans into his ankle.

“I could go out for beers,” Niall offers. “Not quite a pint down the pub, but it might do?”

“Yeah,” says Nick, comfortable with Niall in his house, no threat of photographers or anything. “Let’s do that. There’s a shop down the end of the road that’s got a good selection.” He tosses Niall his house keys. It’s the sort of thing he’d do with Harry unquestioningly, but with Niall it’s new.

He watches Niall walk inside with what he hopes is subtle interest in his bum, then follows him through the house to show him how the lock works.

“Any requests?” Niall asks.

“Whatever strikes your fancy. I’ve never been picky.”

“That’s the best way.”

Nick goes back to poking around the back garden with the dogs, and by the time Niall gets back, he’s scrolling Twitter and catching up on a couple of hours’ worth of celebrity gossip. Harry texts as well. _Back in London, see you soon?_ Nick doesn’t respond right away. He doesn’t want to take the chance that he’ll tell Harry Niall is there and Harry will want to join in; both of them would be too much. So he and Niall have a lovely afternoon in the garden. It’s the closest thing to a date Nick’s had in ages, even if he couldn’t ever call it that.

The day goes on until Nick, lightly buzzed on several beers and nothing to eat since lunch, starts to think it’s time for another meal. With Emily gone, it’s nice to have Niall for company. “Can you cook?” Nick asks.

“I can follow recipes,” says Niall. He stands at Nick’s shoulder while Nick contemplates the contents of his fridge. There are so many kinds of green veg for healthy smoothies, but very little real food. “Or I could buy you dinner.”

“Yeah? If you want to throw around some of that popstar cash, I shouldn’t say no.”

They go to a small Indian restaurant up the road, and then it’s even more like a date, their knees nearly touching beneath the table. They share several pots of curry and tear off bits of naan between them. Niall gives sneaky looks up every time someone new walks into the narrow dining room, and Nick realises Niall’s rumoured claustrophobia is no joke, trapped at a table in a crowded space with only one door. He wonders whether he should have taken Niall somewhere more spacious, but Niall doesn’t complain. He gives good banter, doesn’t pause over the vegetarian menu, and they linger while the crowd thins. It’s getting late for a weeknight. Harry texts again, and Nick puts off answering again. He likes Niall, but he can’t tell if Niall is looking for an invitation to spend the night by now, and Nick still hasn’t decided if he wants to offer one.

“When was the last time you went on a proper date?” Nick asks over dessert, syrup from his gulab jamun sticky on his lips.

“This a date then?” Niall replies with a grin, careless and almost convincingly heterosexual.

Nick, bold, taps his foot against Niall’s under the table. “Could be, if you like. But I mean, like, when’s the last time you went out with someone and knew what it was beforehand?”

“Dunno. It’s been a while. There was a girl my cousins sort of bullied me into seeing. Sort of susceptible to peer pressure, me.”

“Did you like her?”

Niall gives him a long look, like he’s got Nick all worked out. “About as much as you would, I suppose.”

“You don’t have to talk to me about it,” says Nick, anxiety coiling in his belly because Niall’s never said anything to Harry, but he’ll let Nick know clear as day. “It’s not like some club we’re in together. There’s no initiation ceremony.”

Niall cocks his head. “Isn’t there?” He smiles, dirty, and Nick gives his strict attention to his empty bowl. He’s got this urge to talk about Harry, their mutual friend Harry who Niall has never said this to, not in the last seven years. Until a few weeks ago, Nick was relatively sure Harry was the only remotely queer member of One Direction. Why does that matter? Why does any of this make him feel so off-kilter?

“Right. Well, apart from that.”

“I don’t need to talk about it.”

“Sure. But if you ever do want to, that’s alright too.”

“Thanks, Grimmy.”

They part ways finally outside the restaurant, Nick lingering awkwardly like there might be a goodnight kiss forthcoming, but of course there isn’t.

He looks at Harry’s unanswered texts on the walk home and decides not to say anything about his day. It would be too much to explain now. When Harry comes round the next day, it’s just like normal.

 

They see each other again at the party after the _Dunkirk_ premiere. Harry is glowing with champagne and critical approval, swanning around talking to everyone he doesn’t know to make sure they feel included.

“Kiss-arse,” says Niall, handing Nick another cocktail. 

Nick tears his eyes away from Harry’s promenade around the room. “Some people are into that.”

“Right you are,” says Niall, clinking his glass against Nick’s. He’s wearing glasses and a grey suit and he looks investment banker-y again, but this time Nick lets his gaze linger a little more, remembering Niall’s knee against his in the restaurant, his dirty smile. He’s tipsy enough to wonder what Niall’s like in bed.

“How long do we hang around the open bar waiting for him to notice us, do you think?” Nick asks.

“Five to seven years,” says Niall. “Give or take.” There’s no bite to it, and Nick laughs. Niall’s had two top ten singles and obviously isn’t feeling threatened by Harry the movie star.

“We could leave before then.” It’s too much like “come home with me,” Nick realises after the words are out of his mouth, and Niall eyes Harry coming their way at last, stopped in his path by a glamorous woman in a backless dress. He takes a sip of his drink and Nick watches him swallow.

“We could leave,” Niall repeats thoughtfully, and Nick’s stomach clenches. He could want Niall if he let himself. He could snog Niall desperately in the back of a cab and it probably wouldn’t be enough for him. “Do you want to leave?” he cocks his head towards Nick as he asks.

Nick shifts so their shoulders touch and he catches a waft of Niall’s cologne. “Not alone.”

“If you’re waiting on Harry it could be a long night.”

“I’m not.” They’re in it now, striking the bargain that definitely ends with them in Nick’s bed, one way or another. Niall’s face is blank, eyes on nothing, and Nick holds his breath until Niall speaks again.

“I don’t usually do this,” he admits, before downing the rest of his drink like he’s going to anyway.

“What? Desert young Harold at parties? I promise he’ll be all right.” Nick gulps the rest of his vodka tonic, too, over eager, and the bubbles tickle his sinuses.

“Go home with someone who knows my right name.” His voice is low and confessional, and Nick’s on the verge of asking intimate, probably indiscreet questions when Niall adds, “Of course you’ve never got the hang of my surname in the last seven years.”

Nick isn’t sure what to say to that. The people on the text say the same thing enough mornings, but Nick’s still not entirely sure where he goes wrong. “Sorry.”

“You just need to put the emphasis on ‘whore’. It’s not that hard.” Niall sets his empty glass on a nearby table and turns back to lift an eyebrow at Nick. “Shall we go?”

They’re in a lift when Nick looks up from his phone to say, “Your place or mine?”

“Yours. My cousin I live with, he’s not, you know.”

“Okay.” He puts in his address and the app says a car will arrive in three minutes. He can’t say any of the things he wants to in the crowded lobby, and his stomach wobbles as he wonders if there’ll be pap shots of them leaving together, how long it’ll take before Harry knows without his saying a word.

Niall gets out his phone in the car and immediately snaps a selfie, although he doesn’t do anything with it yet. Nick hadn’t seen any photographers at the moment they left, but not being seen is a pap specialty. “Are you going to post that?” Nick asks.

“In a bit. Never want it to be quite real time, or there’ll be someone waiting outside my house.”

“They’d wind up disappointed.”

“You mean to say I’m spending the night at yours?”

Nick feels caught out. They could shag and Niall could leave and that might be easier, but somehow that wasn’t the picture in his head. “I’d like if you did.”

Something in Niall’s face changes and he looks down at the dark screen of his phone. “I don’t really do that much either.”

“Okay.” They ride in silence for a bit, save for the smooth jazz on the car radio, and Nick checks Instagram and considers asking the driver to change the music to something with less mournful saxophone in. Niall’s hand creeps across the seat to rest by Nick’s thigh, and Nick puts his own down to cover it. Niall takes a deep breath like he’s about to speak, but he doesn’t, just tucks one of his fingertips over one of Nick’s and looks out the window. Niall’s revealing himself to be even more of a mystery than Nick expected, while also painting a pretty stark picture of his life, and Nick is torn between wanting to pick apart his secrets and wanting to protect him from exactly that kind of prying.

Niall follows him out of the car without hesitation when they get to his house. Nick prays Emily’s asleep because he thinks Niall might bolt at the suggestion that anyone knows he’s here. The dogs are asleep in the living room, curled up in their beds like they aren’t going to be underfoot any second.

Pig whines sleepily as Nick passes. “Do you want a drink?” Nick asks quietly, shrugging off his jacket.

Niall licks his lips. “I think I’ve had enough for the night. Especially if…” He steps close, tilts his face up in the dim yellow light of Nick’s hall. There’s a rustling and clicking of small paws as Stinky wobbles out of his bed and comes to stand between them, not quite growling but working up to it.

“Then we should go upstairs. They won’t settle with us stood here.”

Nick feels nervous and unsteady, leading Niall up to his bedroom. He’s had loads of people share his bed, Harry included, and they could still just go to sleep. For one last moment that’s still an option. Niall stands shyly in the doorway, and Nick reaches out to him, folds his hand around Niall’s wrist and feels the spike of his pulse.

“Is this all right?” Nick asks quietly, stepping in so Niall’s feet are between his. He can practically hear Niall’s heartbeat.

“I’ll tell you if it’s not. But you don’t have to ask. It can just be whatever it is. That’s all I need.” He looks so young in the light of the bedside lamp, and questions flood into Nick’s mouth again. But he’ll make it simple if Niall wants.

He puts a hand at Niall’s waist, and Niall looks up, lips slightly parted. Nick kisses him, fitting their lips together, soft pressure. Niall shivers forward, eyes closed, and Nick closes his too, licks at Niall’s lower lip until Niall begins to kiss him more deeply. The crisp material of Niall’s shirt bunches between Nick’s fingers, and Niall sighs into his mouth, relaxing now that Nick’s not trying to talk to him or ask him anything. He kisses sweetly, letting Nick pull him in, move him around.

Niall feels small in his arms, and Nick couldn’t have predicted how protective he’d feel, tilting his face down to kiss him, one hand plucking at Niall’s neatly tucked in shirt. He wonders when the last time Niall did this was, how long it’s been since someone touched him if even Nick’s fingers at the small of his back make him moan. 

“What do you like?” Nick asks, breaking the kiss and starting on Niall’s shirt buttons.

“I’m easy,” Niall replies, looking down at Nick’s fingers. “Whatever’s on offer’ll be good for me.” It’s how Nick lived most of his twenties, and he had a grand old time, but when he thinks about Niall saying he doesn’t do this with anyone who knows his name, that easy opportunism seems devastating.

He forces the issue a little. “The menu’s a bit wider when you’re spending the night than when you’ve got a stranger’s hand down your pants in a club toilet. Think of it like a restaurant. What’ll you get here that you can’t have just as good at home?”

Niall gives him an appraising look, licks his lips and smiles. “People tell me to go fuck myself pretty often, but I’m not great at it. You could fuck me.”

Nick kisses him again. “I could, yeah.” He tugs Niall’s shirt out of his trousers, spreads it open and tickles his fingers through the hair on Niall’s narrow chest. “You done that before?”

Niall’s smile falters. “Yeah, some.”

“Bloody awful in a club toilet, isn’t it? I got such a bad Charlie horse trying to contort myself around once that we had to stop in the middle. Took him about five minutes to realise I was groaning in pain. Nightmare.”

He can feel Niall relax, like telling stupid stories about himself unlocks something Niall normally keeps shut up tight. “Worse when you’re trying to be quiet though. At least in a club there’s music to cover.” He slips open the first button of Nick’s shirt, then the next two in quick succession, like he’s daring himself to do it. “I whacked my knee into the door of a broom cupboard at an arena once, nearly bit me own hand off trying to keep quiet with the whole crew right outside.”

Nick grimaces. “The bad knee?”

“They’re both bad, but it was before the surgery and all. I’m more careful now.”

Nick tries not to think about how long ago that would have been, the hurt in Harry’s voice when he’d talked about Niall not confiding in him. It’s been years. “I’ll be gentle with it,” Nick says. 

Niall presses his lips to Nick’s collarbone. “You don’t have to be that gentle.”

They undress each other slowly, lazily, as though Nick’s alarm isn’t going off in six hours. He doesn’t mention the fact that it is, keeps kissing Niall, nuzzling at his mouth and the fluttering pulse point under his chin. Niall is sensitive and responsive, leaning into Nick, who holds him close with a hand at the small of his back.

“We could lie down,” Nick offers, as Niall grinds against him, dick pressing at the front of his pants, trousers halfway down his thighs.

He blinks up at Nick, open mouthed, cheeks fetchingly pink. “Let’s do that.”

Nick shifts a couple of decorative pillows to a chair, and Niall chuckles. “What? Like you haven’t got anything frivolous on your bed? I’ve seen your posh house on Instagram.”

“I don’t share my bed, so it never comes up.” He says it flippantly, shakes his head at Nick’s stricken look. “It’s not so bad.” He pushes his trousers off, picks them up and folds them over. “Can I put these someplace they won’t wrinkle? Want to look my best when I sneak out in the morning.”

Nick hangs them in the wardrobe along with Niall’s shirt, which may already be a lost cause, and they confront each other in just pants. The scar on Niall’s knee is a stark line, and Nick’s eyes catch on it for a moment as he looks Niall over. Niall is compact, twinky but not sculpted, his body lovely but unremarkable, and Nick feels a glow of empathy for him, taking on the fickle London gay scene without using his fame as a crutch. He looks like the sort of bloke who deserves a boyfriend and a quiet night in. Nick’s a little sorry he can’t give him that.

“Not thinking of kicking me out already, are you, Grimmy?” Niall says casually, and Nick runs a hand down his side, letting his thumbnail drag across Niall’s skin.

“What do you call yourself?” Nick asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling Niall into the spread of his legs.

“What?”

“When you’re out. When you get off with strangers who don’t know your name.” He presses his lips to Niall’s belly, feels him shiver under the touch. Niall’s hard, and it’s obvious, the bulge of it right there if Nick wants to put his hands or his mouth on it.

“Different stuff. I don’t even remember. Bit weird when someone’s yelling it out when they come, but it’s all right.”

“Are there disguises involved? Fake accents?”

Niall laughs. “Not so far. Sometimes they don’t even want the name. I don’t really invite a lot of chat.”

“Straight to the point,” Nick says.

“Except for tonight.” 

Nick looks up, meeting Niall’s eyes, soft with a feeling he doesn’t recognise. He feels like he’s unlocked something in Niall, accidentally, just by taking him home, speaking to him, knowing him and still wanting to fuck him. Nick kisses the shape of Niall’s stiff cock through his pants, mouths his way to the sensitive head as Niall snags trembling fingers in his hair. He tugs Niall’s pants down in front just far enough to get at his skin, sucks the tip of his cock into his mouth. Niall moans, and Nick holds him close by the back of his thighs, working him slowly. His dick is a comfortable size for sucking, not too long or thick, and Nick keeps at it for a while, Niall’s breathless little noises getting higher and more urgent.

“Stop,” Niall groans finally. “Fuck. Let me…”

“Let you what, love?”

“Let me ride you,” says Niall bluntly, eyes squeezed shut in desperation. “It’s been so long.” It sounds dragged out of him, a confession he maybe didn’t mean to make.

Nick pulls him down onto the bed, kisses him again as they fumble into a comfortable position, Niall squirming a little on top of him, breath slow and intentional at the corner of Nick’s jaw. When Nick gets Niall’s pants down far enough to palm at the smooth curve of his arse, Niall makes an eager little noise and nuzzles into Nick’s neck. Nick didn’t expect this to be what Niall needed, or that he’d need it so much. He rubs a fingertip over Niall’s hole, feeling it flex under his touch, Niall’s teeth grazing Nick’s skin as he gasps. His dick drips precome on Nick’s belly, trapped tight between their bodies, Nick’s own still tucked in his pants, although with the way Niall’s squirming, it could break free any second.

There’s lube in the drawer of the bedside table, and a single condom packet that crinkles under Nick’s searching fingers. Nick uncaps the lube against the small of Niall’s back, pours a generous amount into the split of Niall’s arse. Niall gasps and spreads wider, get up on his knees a little to give Nick easier access. Nick opens him up on two fingers, working both fingertips into his slick hole together, stretching him out slowly. Niall’s voice is a low, helpless murmur, asking for more already. He presses distracted kisses to Nick’s chest as Nick starts to finger him more thoroughly, reaching deep inside and spreading him open. His hips rock down against Nick’s, and every little movement drags a noise out of both of them, this sweet imitation of fucking.

“Please,” Niall whispers. “Please now.” His voice cracks on the last word, and Nick’s cock twitches in the humid space between their bodies.

He flinches as Nick’s fingers slide out of him, and Nick feels around for the condom in the rumpled bed. Niall sits back to watch him roll it on, crouched over Nick’s thighs. “Climb on then,” Nick tells him, thumb and forefinger clutched around the base of his cock, holding it in invitation.

Niall makes a show of it, looks right at Nick’s face as he matches the head of Nick’s cock to the slick of his hole. He rubs it there, not letting Nick inside, teasing them both with the inevitability of that first startling moment of penetration. And then Niall opens to him, guides him inside in one slow smooth push, like he knows exactly how much he can take. He bites his lip as he sits back, the ripple of his arsehole heavenly around the base of Nick’s cock. His eyes close and then open again, and Nick’s hands frame his hips, thumbs settling against the tops of his slim thighs. Niall’s cock doesn’t falter one bit as he works himself on Nick, slow circles that build to a steady rise and fall, a rhythm that Nick feels in his balls and the small of his back and the arches of his feet.

“Gorgeous,” he says, rubbing a hand over Niall’s belly, not touching his dick even though Niall looks like he needs it. “Just look at you, love. Fuck, Niall.”

Niall ducks his head and loses his rhythm, has to steady himself with a hand on Nick’s ribs. He lifts himself up a little, sinks back down at a slightly different angle, his arsehole clenching on the length of Nick’s cock. It’s too much, and Nick’s breath gets lost in soft noises as Niall moves on top of him, working his whole body into it. When Niall moves to touch himself, Nick brushes his hand away and curls his fingers around Niall’s straining dick, just enough to let Niall thrust into the circle of his hand as he keeps fucking himself down on Nick’s cock. Niall’s breath threads out into a long moan, and the motions of his hips turn to unsteady jerks.

Nick watches him come with a shudder and a groan, arsehole squeezing on the base of Nick’s cock as Niall holds him deep as he can inside. He takes what he needs from the pressure of Nick’s hand and his cock, loses himself for a moment and then looks down at Nick’s face again, circling his hips like he’s not sure he can take more. He licks his lips and Nick rubs a hand down the inside of his thigh, the skin soft and sweat slick under his palm, pulse thrumming underneath. Nick wants to thrust up into him, finish himself off in the heat of Niall’s arse. “Don’t stop,” Niall says, and the way his fingers curl against Nick’s chest is as intimate as the clutch of his arsehole.

Nick rocks upward, Niall shifting over him with a soft grunt. It’s not quite enough. He shifts backwards, holding Niall in place until he can set his shoulders against the headboard. “Come here,” he says, tugging Niall down into a kiss. Niall angles into it, mouth opening, tongue stroking over Nick’s. Nick cups his arse, fucking into him harder, firm thrusts that jostle Niall in his lap, their kisses turning sloppy. When Nick comes, it’s with Niall sucking at his lower lip and bearing down on his cock. They keep kissing for long moments after, until Nick needs to let him go, uncomfortably sensitive.

Niall follows him into the bathroom and wipes himself down with a damp flannel, casually naked at the mirror, backlit by the glow of the bedside lamp through the doorway. Nick wants to say something, to be sure Niall will stay, but in the end he just wraps a hand around his wrist and tugs gently, and Niall follows him back to bed.

They’re kissing in the dark, soft and slow and warm, when Nick’s phone chimes on the bedside table. Nick sighs and reaches for it, just as there’s an answering buzz from Niall’s on the other side of the bed. In that moment, Nick knows they’ve both got the same message. _When did you leave? I wanted to say goodnight_ , the text says, and Nick can hear Harry’s disappointed voice in his head.

Niall’s says, _Are you still up? I didn’t realise you left early_. They compare phone screens in the dark, Niall’s eyebrows pinched together in the white glow.

“I guess that means our five to seven years is up,” says Nick. It’s nearly one, which is not something he needed to know when he was having a nice time.

Niall gives a wan little smile. “Are you going to say anything to him?”

“Not now. Maybe in the morning. By then he’ll remember I don’t respond to messages in the middle of the bloody night. Are you going to answer?”

Niall stares at his phone until the screen goes dark again. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

Nick feels a jab of guilt like an elbow to his ribs. But this isn’t for Harry. It isn’t owed to him. He touches Niall’s hand, clutched too tightly around his phone. “Don’t worry about it then.” Niall lets him tug the phone away, set them both beside the bed, before kissing him again. Harry isn’t the type to text twice, and Nick doesn’t think of anything except Niall until his first alarm goes off in the morning.

They fall asleep tangled together, but by 5:15, Niall’s sprawled at the opposite edge of the bed, one hand flat on Nick’s chest their only point of contact. Niall groans into the pillow. “What the fuck time do you call this?” he asks with a rueful smile, his voice gruff with sleep.

“One hour to breakfast show o’clock.” He kisses Niall’s temple, but Niall tips his face up for a proper kiss, their lips soft and dry as they part. “You can just hang around here while I’m out, if you like. My housemate’ll probably be here for a bit, but she won’t bother you.”

“I should be getting home. But thanks.” He licks his lips. “Have you got a spare toothbrush?”

“Yeah, let me get you one.” He slips out of bed and Niall follows him, looking more uncertain in the light of dawn. “Your clothes should be all right in the wardrobe,” Nick adds. “Unless you’d like to borrow something of mine.”

“Not a proper walk of shame unless you do it in last night’s clothes, is it?”

Their eyes meet in the bathroom mirror, and Nick smiles around his own toothbrush. He puts a hand on Niall’s bare hip, squeezing sympathetically. He’d like to think he’s not the worst possible morning after.

Niall shrugs into last night’s shirt and trousers while Nick gets his jeans on, and Nick smoothes the fabric over his chest, tracing fine wrinkles. “You’re sure you don’t want to stay?”

“It’s better if I get home.” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “No one will see me this early.”

“What do you tell your cousin?”

“Nothing. He can think what he likes. Lots of pretty girls at that party last night.” He checks Nick’s address and calls a car. “In three minutes, I’ll be out of your hair.”

Nick’s cab won’t even arrive for another ten. It seems like everything is ending too fast, Niall closing himself back up like in an hour he’ll just be Harry’s mate who comes in for promo again. Nick pulls him into a hug, and Niall allows it, tipping his face into Nick’s shoulder and hanging on. “You’ve got my number, if you’ll be around for a bit,” Nick tells him. “We could grab dinner again.”

Niall nods. “Sure.”

He’s already out the door when Nick realises he hasn’t got a goodbye kiss, and now it’s too late to do anything about it. Niall strides off down the pavement looking carefree and easy, no hint of last night in his face. Nick waits to see if he’ll wave, but he just disappears behind the hedge, and Nick turns away from the window, heart aching in his chest. He thinks maybe he’ll text if Niall doesn’t, this time.


End file.
